Thread by @usslibertyvets

@RepCloudTX 1/8 On this day in 1967, the #USSLiberty was attacked while steaming in international waters off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula.

2/8 The attack on the #USSLiberty was a deliberate, premeditated, well planned and almost perfectly executed attack by the Israeli military on a lone, freshly painted, well-marked, correctly identified, non-combatant #USNavy ship by the most powerful military in the Middle…

3/8 …East allied with the President of the United States in violation of international law and US Statutes.

Of a crew of 294 officers and men (including three civilians), the ship suffered thirty-four (34) killed in action and one hundred seventy-four (174) wounded in action.

4/8 The ship itself, a Forty Million ($40,000,000) Dollar state-of-the-art signals intelligence (SIGINT) platform, was so badly damaged that it never sailed on an operational mission again and was sold in 1970 for $101,666.66 as scrap.

5/8 The attack included the jamming of our radios on both US Navy tactical and international maritime distress frequencies, the use of unmarked aircraft by the forces attacking the USS Liberty, and the deliberate machine gunning of life rafts we had dropped over the side in…

6/8 …anticipation of abandoning ship.

The White House ordered the recall of rescue aircraft that had been launched from Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers while we were still under attack and calling for help. That order cost the lives of 25 of our shipmates killed by the torpedo.

7/8 After those flights were recalled, Sixth Fleet personnel listened to our calls for help as the attack continued, knowing they were forbidden to come to our assistance.

8/8 The attack on our ship is the only attack on a US Navy ship since the end of WWII NOT investigated by the US government. That fact can be independently verified by having your Congressional Delegation query the Congressional Research Service. actionnetwork.org/letters/congre…